School Choice: Is It Legal?

Court Fight Likely For State's Plan

Using tax dollars to help poor families pay tuition for private and religious schools will be more than just a difficult political task. It probably will end up in court.

A state commission appointed by Gov. John G. Rowland to give parents more freedom in choosing schools agreed Monday that one of its challenges is to find a plan that is constitutional.

``We're going to have to stand up to an army of lawyers,'' state Sen. Winthrop Smith Jr., R-Milford, told the commission as it met for the first time.

Although Smith and the rest of Rowland's 16 appointees generally favor expanding parents' choices, most agreed that the job will be daunting -- and that there is not much time to get it done.

Rowland has asked for a report in three months, in time to present a proposal to the General Assembly next spring.

The governor has openly supported increasing the availability of choices for families, including providing tuition vouchers to help poor families send children to private schools.

In Connecticut and across the country, school choice has generated heated debates.

Supporters of school choice say it would force schools to compete for students and would weed out the worst schools. Many in public schools, however, see school choice as a threat, particularly if private schools can select students and operate under a different set of rules -- skimming off the best students and leaving public schools to deal with the most disadvantaged children.

Opponents also say that any plan involving religious schools violates the constitutional guarantee of separation of church and state.

A coalition of the state's biggest public education organizations issued a statement Monday saying they are ``outraged by the message the governor is sending.''

The coalition -- representing teacher unions, school boards, PTA groups and others -- said that a private school choice plan would harm public schools ``by siphoning off public dollars to private and parochial schools.''

Across the country, about one- third of the states have adopted some form of public school choice policy. Only two, Wisconsin and Ohio, have tuition voucher programs to help low-income families attend private or religious schools. In Wisconsin, opponents have filed a lawsuit challenging the policy. The matter is pending before the Wisconsin Supreme Court.

Besides potential legal issues, other matters could complicate school choice proposals, some members of the Connecticut commission said.

Stephanie Lightfoot, a member of the Hartford Board of Education, said the limited number of spaces in private and parochial schools might prevent many families from getting in. ``It concerns me that we may be setting up an illusion of choice,'' she said.

Nevertheless, commission members said they are determined to settle on a school choice plan, one that includes private and parochial schools and that surmounts political and legal barriers.

``Competition is what America is all about,'' said Rabbi Daniel Greer, founder of the Gan School/Tikvah High School/Yeshiva in New Haven. ``If we want private and parochial schools to compete with public schools, they have to have the same chance at the fiscal apple.''

``Anything private works better,'' he said. ``There is more motivation, more excitement, more involvement, more commitment.''

Greer said he believes the commission can fashion some form of aid, possibly a tax credit for the poor, that would pass the constitutional test.

However, a state legislator who is not on the commission said over the weekend that school choice plans involving religious schools raise serious, possibly insurmountable, constitutional questions.

State Rep. Cameron Staples, D- New Haven, co-chairman of the General Assembly's education committee, told a meeting of education journalists that he sees no way of getting around questions about the separation of church and state.

How, he asked, would the state hold religious schools accountable?

``Even if we were to agree on a sensible means of accountability, it would cross the line where the state becomes involved in the religious affairs of a parochial school,'' he said.